Synergy #33 Spring edition 2003 - European Law Students ...

Marketing
34
Andrius Vitkevicius
Vice President Marketing
ELSA International
What have I learned being Vice President
marketing of ELSA International? This is
the question I have been asking my self
for the past six month. Being a marketer
you have to deal with simple things such
as flyers, brochure, posters etc to
promote our activities. Creating a
magazine such as Synergy is a bigger
challenge and the feedback much more
tangible. I learned that it is not just about
having an idea not just a picture or a text,
there has to be a message behind the
product. And this makes the marketing
area special we have the opportunity to
influence the course of activities going on
in the whole network. But, of course,
before sending a message we have to
consider what it should be. The obvious
solution is market research.
Making a market research is not always
easy there are a lot of factors to consider,
but it is definitely not an impossible job
even for law students. It is a question
of simplifying things and being specific
when deciding on the information you
need to know. Anyway most of us make
market research without even thinking
about it. By observing which lectures
have highest attendance, you find the
topic for your next event and so on. But
market research has the biggest effect
when you structure it a bit and spend
some time analysing.
As you will read in Emily’s article, by
making a market research ELSA
International found out the average of the
languages spoken by European law
students. What field of law they are
interested in and where they would like to
work after they finish their studies. The
chances for a high quality event with a lot
of participants increase when the topic is
“hot” and you direct your marketing
efforts towards the right students. Also
it ensures that the association constantly
develops to meet the needs of our
members and the legal society.
Johan Almer, one of our senior ELSA
members who after working some years
with marketing in ELSA decided to change
his profession from law to marketing. He
is still active in ELSA and supports by
sharing his knowledge about marketing.
Let’s see what he has to say.
Magazine of The European Law Students’ Association
In the early 1970’s the concept of marketing
in the non-profit sector began to be used, but
people did not pay to much attention to this
“obscure” variant within marketing. Nowadays,
however, the term has become widely accepted,
and people have realized that marketing has
much to offer to different organisations.
One of the reasons for the increasing
acceptance of marketing within the non-profit
sector is due to changes in its definition. It is
no longer defined as “the provision of required
goods and services at a profit”, rather it now
focuses on the satisfaction of customer wants
and to sensitively serving the needs of a
particular homogenous group of people 1 – in
ELSA’s case, law students.
ELSA has existed for over twenty years.
In all this time no market research was ever
carried out, however the need to evaluate the
overall performance of the network and to
understand whether it still meets the
requirements of law students, has been
creeping in slowly. After all these years such
an evalu-ation of the association has became
a neces-sity.
The thing that interested me the most
was the fact that a big European organisation
with such a solid foundation, never bothered to
conduct market research to see if it was
satisfying its customers (members) and whether
its resources were allocated in the most
appropriate way. The basis for the market
1 Adrian Sargeant, Marketing Management for Nonprofit
Organizations, p. 4
Emily Bajll
BA Marketing
ELSA and the
“thorough”
market
research
research was the questionnaire that ELSA
made in collaboration with Westlaw
International.
The answers would show what students
wanted to do with their law degree, which field
of law in general were interested in, whether
they wanted to work abroad, etc. The idea was
that the questionnaire was supposed to be
handed out and filled in by both ELSA members
as well as law students in general. This would
provide all National Boards with information on
how to create a proper action plan for the
products offered by the organisation, Seminars
& Conferences (S&Cs), Academic Activities
(AA) and even traineeships (STEP) which would
hopefully attract most students and this
improve ELSA’s performance in the market.
I would just like to remind people that
market research based on questionnaires is a
very easy way to see if your are performing
well in the market. When all of you do the next
research (or the first for most countries),
remember you can ask about anything you need
information on, just have a clear idea of what
you wish to accomplish by the research, and
consider the goal / point of each question. Break
the questions down, consider, why you are
posing the questions you have decided to include.
Last, but not least of all, use the knowledge
you get from this market research and
implement it in the next one. Your is the only
way to improve.